Yahtzee! by Lesley Bolton

Rating: 8+

Yahtzee may be played by one or more people, in teams or alone. To determine who plays first, all players roll the dice. The player with the highest total score goes first, and play continues clockwise.

Players roll the dice three times in an attempt to get the best score possible. The score sheet has thirteen score boxes with different combinations of the dice to get the best score. The upper part of the scorecard contains types such as Aces (Ones), Twos, Threes, Fours, and so on. Players score adding the numbers on the dice rolled that correspond with the number in the box. For example, if you are scoring in the Five box and roll two fives, you get 10 points. If you earn 63 points or more in the upper section, you earn a bonus of 35 points. The bottom part has various combinations:

Three or four of a kind: sum of the dice

Full house (three of one kind, two of another): 25 points

Small straight (sequence of four numbers): 30 points Large straight (sequence of five numbers): 40 points Yahtzee (five of a kind): 50 points

In the bottom part, players either match the exact requirement and get all of the points or they get zero points. For extra Yahtzees players get 100 points, up to three Yahtzees.

Each player's first roll must be made with all five dice. After that the players choose whether or not to use their remaining rolls to try to get a better score. They may also choose the number of dice to roll. For example, if a player was going for the Twos box and rolls two twos, he or she may pick up the remaining three and try again with those dice. Score is taken on the last roll. Each player must score in each box before the game can end.